representing homeowners

Affirmative Action for the Rich

Dean Baker, Co-Director for the Center of Economic and Policy Research, wrote the following article:

In fact, many of the bankers who were begging Congress for below-market loans two years ago are now bragging about having paid back the money with interest. This should prompt ridicule. Instead, all the reporters and columnists who were too thick to see an $8 trillion housing bubble are repeating the banks’ lines and telling us how happy we should be about the bailouts.

In the financial crisis of two years ago, these banks would have been forced to pay enormous interest rates to borrow money in private markets. This would have pushed most of them into bankruptcy.

Instead, the Treasury and the Fed gave them money at near-zero cost. This was an enormous subsidy that allowed them to stay in business. It’s nice that the banks tossed us a few nickels in interest, but the taxpayers preserved trillions of dollars in wealth for their shareholders, top executives and creditors. We would have a very different economy, with a very different wealth distribution, if we had allowed the magic of the market to do its work on the financial industry.

But, that’s history. The current issue is whether we will again grant special treatment to the financial industry by allowing them to skirt the legal procedures required for foreclosures. In the land of endless affirmative action for the rich, the smart money is on the banks. After all, huge multi-national banks can’t be expected to read all the fine print that binds the rest of us.